Silkworm
by Syrinx
Summary: Both know their time has passed, but since when have either admitted defeat? Ashleigh/Brad. New Generation.


Silkworm  
By Syrinx  
Summary: Both know their time has passed, but since when have either admitted defeat?  
Pairing: Brad/Ashleigh  
Spoilers: up to Cindy's Desert Adventure  
Disclaimer: All rights to the Thoroughbred series belong to Joanna Campbell and Harper Collins.

I.

There is no easy explanation for some things, and this is one of them. Hardly even that. Explanations involved history, and she preferred to gloss over that. Even though it was never any easier. She expected it never would be that. Easy. That wasn't a word she applied to her life.

Before, during the history she didn't acknowledge, she remembered how she knew this was crazy. During those first few days and lingering nights, the word roved around in the back of her head to remind her. _Crazy. This is crazy. You're crazy._ He had even spoken the word to her face. Crazy.

Yet crazy had gone and become normal.

II.

There was a house outside of Baltimore. It was off the main road, set behind a screen of trees, and overlooked a stream. It was the least used of five other homes he owned, mostly because it was his wife's least favorite.

She loved it, though. Everything about it was right up her alley. Perfection. She didn't even care that it was only half furnished and never had a stocked refrigerator. She loved it for the same reasons his wife hated it. Here they were the only two people on earth.

He had never told her he loved her, but he thought that this was the first reason why he did.

III.

There was a crystal vase filled with daffodils on the bedside table. Their sunburst blossoms exploded off of thick green stems that bent to tip the petals in a myriad of ways. They had grown around the stone patio in the backyard, and she had picked them. Daffodils were her favorite.

She watched them from the bed as the morning light filtered in from the open window with the new, spring breeze. It wasn't cold, but she used it as an excuse to wrap herself a little tighter in the white sheets and tuck her leg between his.

He felt that, even in sleep, and reached out to her with his left hand. The platinum around his ring finger burned a cold trace down her bare back, and she shivered. She used it as an excuse to push closer and close her eyes when he murmured, "Ashleigh."

IV.

Maryland Two-Year-Olds in Training. Fasig-Tipton. These were their stories. They went to the auction at mid-morning in separate cars and arrived thirty minutes apart. This was the standard. They looked at different horses, and drifted by each other without a word.  
He was careful about this. Crazy careful. Almost too careful, and he hated it.

For them there were no public events, no dinners, no dates, no flowers, no gifts, and absolutely no sidelong glances. Public visits with each other were to be as they had been before, when history was so radically different that it pained him. He was the asshole, the one who pushed and got results no matter the cost. He was the thorn in her side, as she was the thorn in his.

He wasn't a very good actor.

V.

She was surprised, to say the very least. The horse, a young Storm Cat, had been fussing and carrying on. She had been checking out the animal's hind legs, bending just slightly to run a hand around his hock and down. Something had spooked him, and suddenly she had toppled to the ground with a very shocked two-year-old giant trying to avoid her limbs.

One thing she had never done was panic with a horse. The animal lifted his hind leg and stepped over her body, allowing her to roll clear and sit up as the handler steered the upset animal away.

When she looked up, still sitting on the floor and starting to shake at the realization that everything could have ended there, he was offering her a hand. Blinking, she accepted it and let herself be hauled to her feet. She let go of him quickly, aware of the attention on her, and looked down. The look on his face was too much.

"Are you alright?" she heard him ask. "Ash?"

Then she let out the sob in her throat and thrust herself at him, crying against his shoulder. It was a relief for her that he held her there, in front of so many people. She hadn't really known if he would.

VI.

In the afternoon she sat on the patio, watching the stream bubble up over the smooth rocks along its edges. He was meeting with friends, whom she could never know, and left her lost in thought. She tucked her legs up against her chest, resting her chin against her knees, and listened.

Rubbing her thumb along the gold of her wedding band, she closed her eyes. Oh, she had regrets. So many decisions had been made that had produced nothing but a long string of second guesses. Quietly she tugged off her wedding band and the diamond engagement ring that followed, setting them both on the table in front of her.

When she opened her eyes she had no revelation. She supposed it was because she wasn't truly searching for one.

VII.

He watched her sitting there on the porch, and part of him was breaking. This was becoming too much, and he knew it now. He knew it that morning when she laid at the mercy of one idiot horse, just as much as he did now as he watched her looking at her bare ring finger.

"No," he found himself saying, catching her off guard. She turned quickly and looked at him with wide hazel eyes.

"No, Ash," he shook his head and walked up to her, scooping the rings up in his right hand. She stared with tears forming in her eyes as he crouched down before her and took her left hand, replacing the rings. This was as close as they were going to get.

"Why does it have to be this way?" she asked, letting her hands rest in his. When he didn't answer immediately she laughed and rubbed the back of one hand against her cheek, wiping at a rolling tear. "Are we this stupid?"

He shook his head, reaching up to thread his fingers into her dark hair, letting a thumb rest against her cheek. "No, not stupid," he assured her, pushing up and kissing her. She kissed him back, unfolding her legs to let him get closer. He pulled away for a moment, smiling.

"Just amazingly ill-timed."

VIII.

Somewhere between the patio and the bedroom he had managed to let it slip.

"I love you."

Three words, eight letters, and suddenly his world changed. The look she gave him was simultaneously telling him he was crazy and demanding him to say it again. So he did.

_Crazy._

They moved under the sheets that rippled a little with the breeze that swept in from the open windows. His hands slipped along her skin, moving over memorized paths. No regretting anything now. It was right.

Sometime later in the night she smiled against his neck and murmured, "Me, too."

IX.

Whenever she tried to remember the beginning, she couldn't. Their first civil conversation (the Del Mar meet), the first time he had comforted her (when Mike couldn't look at her anymore), their first kiss (in the rain on the streets of New York), their first time together (just after New Year's Eve), and the first time she thought she might love him (gradually forever) were what she remembered. Only these little things. Nothing so huge as what she would be asked when they were found out.

If they were ever found out. Couldn't these things be continued for years?

She smiled softly as he held her, warm together on the bed. This could last. She wanted it to last. This was happiness, wasn't it? What she felt wasn't regret, or pain, or guilt. This was her life, her love. Could this not last?

But then there was that soft reminder in the back of her head.

No.

_This isn't yours. You're crazy._

Nothing lasts.

X.

He held her while she slept, watched her ribcage rise and fall with each breath. The sun was setting, casting orange and red rays into the room. The daffodils quivered lightly in their vase as a breeze slipped in through the windows. He could hear the new leaves rustling in the trees, the stream rushing by.

This had been totally unexpected. He admitted that. The whole damned thing had never been intended. Sometimes he wondered if he was out of his mind. Maybe he was.

This wasn't his life, and the woman he laid next to had never been intended for him. Not that he believed in predetermination. It was only that when he was near her everything fell into place. He didn't have to force the pieces.

It was a welcome change. He would keep it if he could. He would keep going on with her, loving her, even if it meant lying about everything outside of them. What did it cost to live two lives at once?

There was a part of him that knew. A cost was lying hidden under the surface, and he wasn't brave enough to face it yet. If it came to that, he would like to think he would lie in the bed he made. He would like to think that. God, he was insane. _Crazy._

She shifted a little, waking up solely to lure him to sleep. He wrapped the white sheets around them, shoving everything else away. The fiery light of the sunset caught on the white fibers and glowing brilliantly, as though it could light them on fire.

The phone began to ring.

Neither seemed to notice, nor care.


End file.
